• Infinitesimal Hinge: As The Grossness of Spring Lolls Its Head Against The Window

    March 30, 2020 - By 

    “This is how you disappear”, Scott Walker sings at the start of ‘Rawhide’, the first track from 1984’s Climate Of Hunter. The persistent high pedal of clustered strings that seems to hold everything in suspension – his voice, the secondary voice of the fretless bass – taut like a puppeteer’s strings, we now unmistakably recognise as characteristic of his arrangements. We can trace this dissonant resonance back to tracks ‘Such A Small Love’ from Scott through ‘Plastic Palace People’ from Scott 2 to Scott 3’s ‘It’s Raining Today’ – all his own compositions – and specifically to the talents of…

  • Remembering Scott Walker: Neil Brogan on Nite Flights by The Walker Brothers

    March 27, 2019 - By 

    The first song I reached for when I read Scott had passed was ‘Nite Flights’. Something about the strange, languid defiance of this song has always lifted me. The four tracks Scott contributed to the Walker Brothers final album represent the pivotal moment in his discography, the hinge that connects Scott Walker the faded 60’s pop star to latter-day avant Scott. The album itself was a contract filler, recorded in 1978 when the Walker Brother’s reunion had worn out a brief mid-decade welcome. They could have hashed out a few covers and called it quits, instead they each decided to…